


Encounters

by jeeno2



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gendry is a Baratheon, Prince Gendry, Rags to Riches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-03-06 09:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18848494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: It’s the coldest night King’s Landing has seen in over twenty-five years the first time Arya Waters meets Gendry Baratheon.





	1. The First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of a fic I initially (mostly) wrote back in 2014 and then abandoned in 2015 due to lack of time and inspiration (and because I'd made the story too complex lol).
> 
> In light of S8 I've been inspired to heavily rework what I'd initially posted into something a bit more concise. And complete. ;) For anyone who might remember the story from years ago, I hope you enjoy the story's resolution all these years later. <3

It’s the coldest night King’s Landing has seen in over twenty-five years the first time Arya Waters meets Gendry Baratheon. 

The official start of winter won’t be declared for another two weeks if the Citadel man who came to the brothel yesterday is to be believed.  But Arya never puts much stock in what Citadel men say. Her toes are half frozen inside her old worn boots and her fingers are blocks of ice. If that doesn’t mean winter’s come already, she’s some highborn Lady from a fancy House.

This isn’t the first time Arya’s seen important men in here. No; this place is a favorite of men wearing both Gold cloaks and White. Men in Maester’s collars too, sometimes.  Lord Toppance’s location – on the outskirts of King’s Landing, hidden behind the shadow cast by the city’s massive gates – is perfect for men who want to fuck a nameless girl without anyone important finding out about it. 

But even if Arya has seen men with the Baratheon stag on their cloaks in here more times than she can count she’s certainly never seen so many all at once. They usually come in small numbers, hunched over and with their heads half-hidden beneath their cloaks as Toppance shows them behind the red velvet curtain. Like they know being here is something to be ashamed of.

Tonight, though, Arya has a crowd of Baratheon men to feed. She doesn’t know her numbers too well--Magda, the yellow-haired girl who used to teach her things, died two seasons ago from grayscale--but she counts the men as best she can. She guesses there are at least twenty. Tonight she has to work extra hard just to give them enough food and drink to keep them happy while they wait their turn.

Arya learned years ago it’s important to keep men happy while they wait their turn. It’s hard work keeping their hands from wandering where they shouldn’t. Just in case, Arya keeps a sharp dagger on her person at all times. 

She isn’t afraid to use it.

“Another bowl!” the man sitting alone in the far corner shouts out from his end of the room. He’s a great big jowly man, and Arya can tell by how red his face is that he’s already half in his cups. He loudly slams his fist on the table in impatience.  

Arya’s grateful that the kitchen made hot stew for the men tonight. In the time it takes her to go from kitchen to table the heat from the bowls warms her hands enough to keep them from becoming painfully stiff.  If they’d prepared something like cold mutton--or if they’d made nothing at all--Arya would have to rub her hands together to keep warm.

Just as Arya gives the last man his stew, Toppance pushes aside the red velvet curtain and walks into the common room. He takes one look at the man Arya is serving and pales.

His jaw drops.

“Your grace!” Toppance squeaks. He nearly topples over in his haste to bow his head.  His face goes from deathly pale to beet red in an instant. “I… I had no idea you were here, your grace.”  He looks up, then, and glares at Arya. “Our stupid girl didn’t tell me.”

_ Your grace _ ?

Slowly, Arya turns to look at the man she just gave a hot bowl of stew.  And her eyes go round with surprise. 

Before this moment, Arya had never seen Prince Gendry Baratheon, heir to the Iron Throne, in person.  To her knowledge he’s never been here before. But King Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name--and Prince Gendry’s father--has been a frequent customer of Toppance’s for as long as Arya can remember. And the young man sitting before her now has to be King Robert’s heir. His hair is the telltale Baratheon black, his shoulders are broader than any man’s shoulders really ought to be--and his eyes, which are now fixed right on Arya’s face, are the flawless blue of a summer sky.

When Arya realizes she’s staring she flushes scarlet and her eyes drop to her shoes.  She quickly bows her head like Toppance taught her to do whenever a highborn Lord pays a visit.

“Your grace,” she murmurs.  She can still feel the prince’s eyes on her, and she squirms uncomfortably.

“Please, your grace,” Toppance says.  “There’s no need for you to wait out here. Come with me and I’ll –“

“That won’t be necessary,” the prince interrupts. Arya looks up at him and notices a prominent, jagged scar underneath his bottom lip. She briefly wonders how someone who’s lived such a privileged life could have earned a mark like that.   

“I beg your pardon, your grace?” Toppance asks dubiously. 

“I’m only here because it’s my eighteenth name day and my father sent me here to--celebrate it,” Prince Gendry explains. He sounds embarrassed. “He’s not here now, though. And what he doesn’t find out won’t hurt him. My men here will have use of your services, but I’m perfectly content to sit here with some ale while they’re…. busy.”  The prince takes a sip from his tankard as color creeps up his cheeks.

Toppance shrugs. “If your grace is certain –“

“I am,” Prince Gendry assures him. “Quite certain.”

Toppance nods and shrugs again, apparently satisfied. He approaches the three men seated to the prince’s left and taps them on the shoulder, letting them know his girls are ready for them.  Amidst hearty shouts and claps on the prince’s back as they pass by, the men follow Toppance behind the red curtain.

\---------

Even though Prince Gendry shows no interest in the girls who work here it’s abundantly clear he has no objection to Toppance’s ale. 

Arya brings him tankard after tankard as his men take their turns.  And the prince wastes no time in draining them, one after the other.

None of Prince Gendry’s men spend more than a few minutes back there.  It’s not clear to Arya whether it’s because they just don’t  _ need _ that much time--or whether they feel awkward being with a whore when their prince waits out here, drinking himself into a stupor.  Either way, as his men march back out, one by one, red in the face and sweating a little, they wink at Gendry and clap him jovially on the back.

For his part Prince Gendry merely rolls his eyes at them and continues to drink. 

He seems to enjoy drinking. He also seems to enjoy watching Arya as she moves about the common room. He keeps his gaze upon her as she works, tidying up the mess his men are making this evening.

She doesn’t know why he’s watching her. Normally men only stare if they’re about to try something funny. But Gendry turned down Toppance’s whores--grown women, all of them, with great big tits and curvy hips. Surely he isn’t about to try something funny with the likes of  _ her. _

Whatever his reasons, she can feel his gaze upon her as she moves about the room as acutely as a physical touch.  It makes her nervous.

Finally, after what feels like a very long time, Prince Gendry clears his throat.

“What’s your name?” he asks. His voice is rough but not unkind. He can, of course, demand anything of her that he wishes.  But it’s clear he’s asking her to share her name, not demanding she do so.

“Arya,” she says.

“You have a surname, Arya?”

“No, your grace.”  She stands a little taller. Most of the girls here are ashamed of their baseborn status but Arya’s not. She doesn’t care that her mother was a whore and that she’s the get of some man she’ll never know. Arya’s mother was strong, and brave, and smart. Those are the very best traits a person can have.

Arya has met far too many stupid, useless highborn lords and ladies to ever feel shame over being a bastard.

If Prince Gendry is taken aback by speaking with a girl named Waters he doesn’t show it. He drinks deeply from his ale again, his eyes still on her. She fidgets, nervous. Picks at her cuticles.

“Does this Lord Toppance – does he treat you well?” he asks after another long moment.

Arya’s eyes go wide with surprise. Why is he asking her these things? 

“Yes, your grace.”  It’s the truth. For thirteen years he’s let her live under his roof and has kept her belly full. Because she is still technically a child he keeps her in the kitchen and out of the back rooms. He gives her a small wage even though she doesn’t earn him a single penny in return.

He’s not perfect. But he has never once beaten her. From the stories the other girls tell, Arya knows she could have it far worse.

“You look cold, though,” he muses. He worries his bottom lip with his teeth as his eyes travel from her face to her hands, which are red and raw from the frigid dish water.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Winter is coming,” she tells him. “Everyone’s cold. I’m no colder than anyone else.”

He frowns as he takes in the rest of her.  Her shabby shoes. Her worn shift. 

He looks back up at her face and shakes his head.

He takes his wool cloak off his shoulders and gets out of his chair.  And he walks over to her, one half of his mouth quirking up in a half smile.

“Here.” The prince drapes his gold wool cloak bearing the black Baratheon stag around her small body without another word. 

The prince looks down at her and leaves his hands on her shoulders for what feels like a very long time. His palms are warm despite the room’s pervasive chill.  She can feel the heat of his hands through the thick fabric of the cloak, through her threadbare shift, and all the way down to her skin.

Arya shivers a little at his touch--which makes no sense, given that she’s warmer in this moment than she’s been in weeks. Months.

It takes her a long time to find her voice again.

“Your grace,” she says, her voice shaky.  “Your cloak? It’s… it’s got the Baratheon stag on it.  I can’t take this.” Toppance’s girls have repeatedly and loudly forbidden her from ever accepting gifts from a man. Gifts from men to girls who haven’t flowered lead to nothing good.

“You  _ can _ take it,” he says. He waves his hand dismissively. “I’ve got plenty of others.  And you’re freezing.”

Something about the complacent tone of his voice irks her. She stands up straighter and squares her shoulders. “I’m not something to be pitied, your Grace,” she insists. “I’m not a charity case.  Or a Flea Bottom wretch, neither. I earn my keep.”

She moves to take the cloak off her shoulders and hand it back to him.

But the prince just shakes his head.  “Keep it, Arya,” he insists. “It’s a royal command.”  He bites the inside of his cheek and tries to hide his smile. But he can’t manage it. He begins to laugh, his blue eyes twinkling in amusement.  “No, it’s not a royal command. I don’t have it in me to command anyone, ever. Over anything.” He fidgets with his collar. Looks down at the ground. “But please; just take it. I’ll... sleep better knowing you have something to keep you warm at night.”

As offended as Arya is at the implication that she’s a charity case, and as afraid as she is of what the other girls will say when they find out, Arya knows she cannot refuse a gift from the prince.  She’s always had a careless tongue, but one wrong word right now could land her in the dungeons.

So she says nothing

“Thank you, your grace,” she mutters, digging her fingernails into her palms so she doesn’t say anything else. So she doesn’t say the  _ wrong _ thing.  

She wraps the cloak a little more tightly around her body.  It is, in fact, very warm. 

As loathe as she is to admit it, it feels wonderful.

A long, awkward pause settles between them after that. In the silence that fills the room Arya can hear the last of Prince Gendry’s men in the back room. It’s nothing Arya hasn’t heard half a thousand times before, but tonight, the sounds of their thrusts and grunts and groans make her blush.

“I better go,” Prince Gendry says. “I’m sick to death of waiting for those idiots.”

“All… alright, your grace,” Arya says. She gestures to the cloak on her shoulders. “Won’t you be cold on your ride back to the castle?”  One last attempt to get him to reconsider.

“I never get cold,” Prince Gendry tells her. A lie, Arya knows; but she doesn’t press the issue. 

He gathers his remaining things and walks towards Toppance’s front door. 

“Good night, your grace,” she says.  “And… and thank you again.”

Before leaving the brothel Prince Gendry turns back to look at Arya.  And he smiles.

“Good night, Arya Waters.  Be well.”

 

* * *

 

 

It takes some doing to hide the cloak beneath her worn and tattered bedsheets. 

But in the end, Arya thinks she’s managed to keep the other girls from noticing.

She sleeps better that night than she has on any night in recent memory.  Her nights are typically restless affairs, her dreams confusing and strange. 

Tonight, however, underneath Prince Gendry’s warm and comfortable cloak, her sleep is peaceful.  She dreams of forests and streams, and of endless summer. And in these dreams she sees a wide open field in which young direwolves and stags are at play.


	2. Winter is Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the bulk of this story after S3 so here, have some Renly Baratheon and Tywin Lannister for your troubles. Also references to Oberyn Martell. ;)

When Gendry arrives at the Red Keep after riding hard from Toppance’s brothel, half frozen in his saddle and not nearly as drunk as he wants to be, his uncle Renly is waiting for him at the gates.

“Your father is still awake, your grace,” Renly tells him as Gendry dismounts.  He sounds apologetic. Gendry guesses he probably is. “He wishes to speak with you.”

Gendry’s stomach roils at the thought of meeting with his father tonight.  The king most likely wants him to share sordid details about his evening that he wouldn’t want to discuss with anyone, even if such details existed.

Gendry tells Renly nothing of these misgivings. He clenches his jaw and nods silently as the stable boy leads his horse away.

“I’ll find him,” Gendry promises grimly, giving his uncle his leave.

 

* * *

 

Finding Robert Baratheon that night proves an easy task.  

The king sits alone in the small council room, a place he habitually avoids during the day but one of his favorite nighttime haunts. He wears nothing but his nightclothes and a ridiculous velvet robe that does little to hide his girth. His blue eyes are downcast, fixed firmly on a map of the Seven Kingdoms Gendry knows he’s only pretending to study.

Gendry coughs into his hand to alert his father to his presence.

The king looks up at once. At the sight of Gendry’s face– still flushed and red from the cold night air – he brays with laughter. He stands from his chair and strides over to his oldest son, beaming at him with such obvious pride Gendry is suddenly nauseous.

Oblivious to his son’s discomfort he claps Gendry on the back. Hard. He wags his eyebrows suggestively.

“Well done, son,” Robert Baratheon says. He gestures to his shoulders, his back--where Gendry’s cloak should be--and laughs again.  Assuming, most like, that Gendry’s missing cloak is now on the back of whichever whore took Gendry’s _maidenhead_ , as he’d so crassly put it earlier tonight.

Gendry is in no mood to get into what happened at Lord Toppance’s brothel.  Nor what actually happened to his cloak. He nods wordlessly until the king, satisfied with what he thinks his son did that evening, leaves him in peace and goes to bed.

 

* * *

 

Gendry’s sleep that night is fitful.

For reasons he could not begin to explain even if he tried, his conscience eats at him for leaving Arya Waters behind. He doesn’t know her, of course. But she’s obviously hard-working. And fearless as well; that much was certain. She’d held herself with a kind of poise and self-confidence Gendry rarely sees even in highborn girls her age.

Regardless of what else is true about her she’s far too young to have to live, and work, in a place like that. No matter how well Toppance might treat her.

He knows there’s nothing he could have done tonight that would have significantly changed Arya’s circumstances. She’s likely a whore’s daughter, the get of some highborn lord who’ll never claim her. When she comes of age, she’ll probably become a whore herself.

Arya’s future was probably set in stone the moment she was born.

Nevertheless, Gendry spends most of the overnight hours with her face firmly in his mind’s eye.  Racking his brain for ways he could have saved her from that future.

 

* * *

 

Years pass.

Gendry doesn’t see the young bastard girl with the bright gray eyes and the quick wit again until the second full year of winter is nearly over.   

He does still think about her on occasion. Whenever his father pays Toppance a visit--something that happens less frequently now than it did when he was a younger, fitter man--Gendry wonders if Arya still lives there, serving food and wine to highborn men like King Robert Baratheon while they wait their turn.

Sometimes, on especially cold nights when it feels like there isn’t enough firewood in all of King’s Landing to keep his bedchamber warm, Gendry wonders if she still has his cloak.

But he is twenty now. And heir to the Iron Throne. He has little free time anymore for anything. And even less time to think about smart young girls in unfortunate situations.

Instead, his time is now mostly spent in small council meetings, where he frequently presides in his father’s stead, as they try to develop strategies to save the smallfolk of Westeros from this endless winter.

Today’s meeting, however, is about a different matter altogether.

Tywin Lannister, hand of the king, sent a raven to Sunspear over three moons ago, proposing a marriage between Prince Gendry and the Lady Arianne Martell. Lady Martell’s blunt and unequivocal refusal finally arrived this morning. Written in her own hand, the letter plainly states she will not marry into the family that sacked King’s Landing and saw Elia Martell murdered.

“Her refusal is an insult to the crown and an outrage,” Lord Tywin says grimly. He throws the letter into the fire. “Lady Arianne is young but not this bold  She cannot have decided this alone. I don’t doubt she wrote this with Oberyn Martell whispering in her ear the entire time.”

Gendry does not doubt that either. _A woman is not chattel_ , Oberyn said, loudly and memorably, on his last visit to King’s Landing some years ago. Doran Martell, the prince of Dorne and Arianne’s father, would likewise never force his daughter to marry against her wishes.  Even if that means his daughter would never be queen.

“A slight it might be,” Renly agrees. “And yet, if the Spider’s network tells it true, we need Dorne’s support if we’re to survive this winter.” He takes a long pull from his tankard before continuing. “As you know, many smallfolk are going hungry. Some lay the blame for their empty bellies squarely at the feet of the King.  According to Lord Varys’ web, a dangerous few whisper of open rebellion.”

None of this is news to Gendry, of course. The precarious situation the crown finds itself in now that winter is here has been the subject of most of the small council’s meetings for the past year. And it isn’t just the smallfolk that are grumbling about the king’s sloppy handling of things. It would take little to coax the lords of several of the great houses to rise up together in an attempt to topple Baratheon rule.

Renly looks Gendry square in the eye and adds, “Your grace, it is my opinion that we must overlook this insult and find another way to secure Dornish support of the crown. Quickly.”

“Perhaps the betrothal of your sweet sister Myrcella to Trystane Martell, Arianne’s young brother, would be an easier pill for the Dornish to swallow, your grace,” Lord Varys suggests.  “It would give Dorne a princess, rather than force them to give one up to King’s Landing.”

Gendry pauses before answering Lord Varys. He isn’t certain Dorne would agree to wed Trystane to a Baratheon princess when it refused the crown’s similar proposal to Lady Arianne.  

He also cannot help but feel that Oberyn Martell, for all his oddities and hot-headedness, had the right of things.  Gendry thinks of his own mother, Lyanna Stark, whose happiness and freedom was ripped from her when her betrothed laid siege to King’s Landing to reclaim what he believed was his. Half a lifetime spent with a king who preferred drinking and whoring to just about every other activity has left his mother a shell of the proud she-wolf she once was.

The thought of Myrcella being thrust into a similar situation is repellant to Gendry.  

But like his mother’s betrothal to Robert Baratheon more than twenty years ago, this is ultimately not his decision to make.

Gendry chooses his next words carefully.

“I sit here in my father’s stead,” he begins. “And it is my opinion that my sister is too young wed.”  A lie, of course; Myrcella has had a woman’s body for several years, having flowered before winter began. “As you know, however, I have no real authority in these matters. The king will need to be consulted before decisions regarding Myrcella are made.”  

“Of course, your grace,” Lord Varys simpers. “We shall put it before him immediately.”

Gendry takes a swallow from his tankard and nods.

“This still leaves the matter of your own betrothal, your grace,” Lord Tywin says, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on the point they make.

“It does,” Gendry agrees. He clenches his jaw reflexively, as he does every time the subject of his unwed status comes up in small council meetings..

“If Sunspear accepts this alternate proposal,” Lord Tywin continues, “Dorne’s support will be secured, leaving you free to make other – perhaps better – alliances.  Your grace.” Lord Tywin says this all in that queer way of his, looking not so much at Gendry as _through_ him.

Gendry has no response to Lord Tywin. He stares down at the map of the Seven Kingdoms painted on the table, feeling his face turn red, pretending to listen as the small council moves on to the next order of business.

Gendry will, of course, do his duty when the time comes. He knows that at twenty, and as heir to the Iron Throne, he is rather old to still be unwed.  When a bride is selected for him he will have little choice but to do as he is bid.

Regardless, the subject of his hypothetical future betrothal never fails to set his teeth on edge.

He doesn’t want to be part of _any_ girl being forced to marry a man she does not love.

 

* * *

 

If Gendry’s mother knew he occasionally strolled around King’s Landing without an escort – late at night, no less – she would see his head mounted on a pike.

There are times, however, when Gendry simply cannot stomach staying in the Red Keep another minute, no matter how hostile the smallfolk in King’s Landing might be towards the crown. Tonight is one of those times.  

As much as he hates the idea of upsetting his mother, in this case what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

The night air is frigid. Gendry shivers a little, turning up the collar of his cloak to try and keep out the chill. He normally prefers to take these secret walks during warmer weather.  Tonight, however, he finds the cold bracing. A kind of antidote to the irritation coursing through him.

Gendry walks rapidly and aimlessly through the city. He passes horse-drawn carriages and shopkeepers without really seeing them. Before leaving the Red Keep tonight he made a point not to wear anything that might identify him as a Baratheon, much less a prince.  Anyone who would look upon him tonight – his body braced against the harsh winter wind just like everyone else’s – would likely think him but a well-dressed lord.

For an insane moment Gendry fantasizes about what that sort of freedom must taste like.

He’s so absorbed by his dark mood as he walks through the city that he doesn’t realize a thief has been stalking his every movement from the shadows until it’s too late.

When he finally does notice the small, furtive figure, he tries to run. But it’s in vain. A moment later, a slender arm is around his neck and a blade is at his throat.

Gendry yelps loudly and flinches against the knife's cold bite.  He takes several deep breaths as he tries to stay calm.

 _This thief doesn’t know who he’s got_ . _He likely just wants to relieve me of the contents of my pockets._ Gendry tries to reason with himself, but his heart beats so rapidly it feels ready to burst from his chest. He tries to steady his breathing, tries to stand perfectly still as he struggles to remember the disarming maneuvers Ser Loras taught him.  

But then the thief speaks, scattering Gendry’s frantic thoughts like dust on the wind.  

“Your coin, ser,” a young girl’s voice rings out behind him.  "All of it. Now.”

 _A girl?_ It has to be a girl. Gendry is so shocked by this it takes him a moment to find his voice.

“Young lady,” he says after a very long pause. His voice is embarrassingly shaky, his words clouds of steam in the cold night air. “You don’t want to do this.  Look, I can help -- “

The girl unexpectedly cuts him off with a loud shriek. Her knife clatters to the ground.

“Your -- your grace!” she shouts, panicked.

Gendry doesn’t know how the girl now knows his identity when she didn’t before. He pivots on one foot -- slowly, so as not to scare her off -- until he’s standing face to face with his assailant.

Suddenly, he's staring down into a pair of gray eyes he hasn't thought of in many moons but would recognize anywhere. The girl from the brothel holds his gaze, her eyes round as saucers as the enormity of what she's just done hits her.  

They stand there, wordlessly staring at each other for a very long moment.  Before he’s realized it’s happening Gendry's eyes dart over her, taking her in.

For reasons that escape him, Arya Waters is dressed as a boy. Her hair has been cut very short, and she’s wearing the breeches and tunic one might see on a baker's apprentice.

Despite her attire it's quite plain she's no boy.  Her eyes and face look much the same as he remembers them. Her neck, however, is a bit longer, its curve a touch more delicate.  It softens her features and makes her look more womanly, somehow. Her worn brown tunic does little to hide the gentle swell of the small breasts she did not have two years ago. Nor do her breeches hide that her narrow hips are a touch wider than they used to be.

Gendry realizes, too late, that he's staring at her. His eyes quickly flit back to hers, color beginning to stain his cheeks.

"Arya?" he asks in disbelief.  But it's unquestionably her.

"Your grace," she responds, her eyes wide, wild with terror. "I'm so sorry, your grace, I had no idea it was you.  I, I swear I'm no thief. Not usually, I _swear_ it."

"It's... it's all right," he tells her. He adjusts the collar of his cloak and takes a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves that are still with him even though he now suspects he’s in no real danger. "I'm fine. You're fine, too.” He swallows. “I won't breathe a word of this to anyone."

All the fear goes leaves her at once. Her shoulders slump forward and her eyes fall sheepishly at the ground. "Thank you, your grace," she says meekly.

She looks up at him again and gives a small nod. She turns on her heel, ready to take flight.    

Without thinking, Gendry grabs her arm to stop her.

“Your grace,” she says, tugging on her arm a little to free herself.  He doesn’t let go. Soon enough she stops trying to leave. “How -- why do you remember me?”

Gendry blanches a little. They spoke for less than five minutes nearly two years ago in very different circumstances. What answer can he give her that won't make him seem completely depraved?  

“I… have a very good memory,” he lies. He drops her arm with a reluctance he does not understand. To his surprise and relief, she doesn’t run.

Something has obviously changed for Arya since he last saw her. The girl he met two years ago appeared well-fed and well-treated. She wouldn’t be out here, dressed like an urchin boy and robbing people at knifepoint if her situation hadn't become extremely dire.

Did some drunk man put his big hands on her body behind that red velvet curtain?  Did he strike her? Did he _rape_ her, taking her maidenhead while she screamed in exchange for a handful of coins?  Gendry doesn’t know, but the thought of it fills him with a surge of unexpected rage.

“What happened, Arya?” he asks, struggling to tamp down his anger.  "You don’t owe me an explanation,” he adds quickly. "And you are free to go if you wish. I’m just... curious, is all.  You seemed well and happy enough at Toppance’s.”

Arya looks down at the ground again.  

“Lord Toppance started... treating me like his other girls about a year ago, your grace,” she says.  “Soon as I flowered.” She still doesn’t meet his eyes but there’s no shame in her voice. Her voice is steady. She does not blush.  

Gendry, however, does. He had been curious, but he hadn’t meant for Arya to divulge such private information. He’s about to apologize for prying, for being entirely inappropriate with her, when she speaks again.

“The first man Toppance gave me was very rough.  Violent. Some highborn lord from the Neck.” She spits on the ground, disgusted.  “I had Needle with me, though. I ended it before he could finish.”

Gendry looks at her blankly. “Needle?”

Arya points at the blade lying on the ground near her feet.  She bends down and picks it up.

“My dagger," she explains. “I call it _Needle_. I heard once that knights name their swords.”  She shrugs her shoulders. “I know I’m no knight, and this ain’t no sword.  But I named it anyway.”

Arya Waters naming her dagger is such a deliciously, ridiculously brazen thing that Gendry has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

“I cut him. Bad,” Arya continues, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Right on the top of his leg," she says, pointing to the top of her own thigh to clarify. She looks up at Gendry and gives him a sad smile.

“And then what happened?”

Arya sighs. "The man shouted at me. Then he shouted at Toppance. Caused a big scene before he left.” She shakes her head. “Toppance apologized to me for giving me a brute my first time... but said he had a reputation to maintain and a business to run.” Arya shifts her eyes, focusing on a spot just over Gendry’s right shoulder.  “He said he couldn’t keep a dangerous girl like me under his roof.”

Gendry closes his eyes and shakes his head.  If Lord Toppance were here right now he's not sure he'd be able to resist the urge to beat him bloody.

“Have you been out here ever since, then?  For an entire year?" Gendry asks her as gently as he can. He gestures to the space around them. To the street. The gutters. The open sky.

Arya nods. "Aye, your grace."

A lump forms in his throat at the thought of Arya out here on her own, forced to fend for herself in the dead of winter.

"And how are you surviving?"

She shrugs her shoulders again.  “I’m surviving, your grace,” she says very quietly.  The pink flush rising on her cheeks tells Gendry she's surviving by doing something she knows she shouldn’t.  He sends up a brief prayer to the Seven that she’s only thieving -- that she isn’t spreading her legs for coin -- but it’s not his place to ask and he doesn’t pry.

He does something far more rash.

“What – what can I do to help?” he stammers.

“Help?”  Arya looks confused.

Gendry starts speaking very rapidly.  “I don’t know if I can find you work in the Red Keep,” he tells her, tripping over his words.  “I don’t know that you’d want to work there anyway.” In truth, the thought of his father somehow recognizing Arya as a girl from Toppance’s brothel turns his stomach.

Arya flinches.  “The Red Keep?” She shakes her head. “I never said anything about wanting to leave Flea Bottom, your grace.”

Gendry pushes on as though she hadn’t spoken.  “But I can make inquiries at taverns. At knights’ houses, here in King’s Landing.  Good places,” he adds hastily. “Places that need a hardworking girl to run errands or do the cooking.”  His eyes flit to hers. “Nothing like what you left behind.”

Arya says nothing for a long moment.   

“Thank you for your concern, your grace,” she says eventually.  Her tongue darts out to wet her chapped lips, drawing Gendry’s eyes inexplicably to her perfectly bow-shaped mouth.  “But I’m getting along fine on my own.”

Just then, a stiff gust of wind blows by them. Arya wears no cloak and her hands are bare. She grits her teeth as her body convulses for a long, excruciating moment. Her arms go around her small body involuntarily as she tries desperately to conserve what little warmth remains in her.

Gendry shakes his head at her when the wind dies down.

“No,” he tells her bluntly. “Winter is here, Arya Waters. To stay in Flea Bottom is to die.”

She looks up at him again, eyes flashing with something Gendry cannot identify.

“Why do you want to help me, your grace?” she spits out angrily. “I’m no one. _Why_?”

Her words give him pause.   _Why indeed?_  

He doesn’t have an answer for her. Until, suddenly, he does.

“Because this is one thing I _can_ do,” he tells her very quietly, not certain it’s the whole truth.

 

* * *

It isn’t until much later -- when Gendry is back at the Red Keep, warm in his own bed -- that it occurs to him to wonder how the sound of a voice she hadn’t heard in two years was enough to tell Arya who he was.


	3. Unexpected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your kudos and your lovely comments! i've fallen a little behind on replying to them but i've read and loved every one. i hope to get on top of replying to them this week <3

It took six months of Arya proving herself on the streets of Kings’ Landing before Mykal’s gang reluctantly agreed to let her join them. 

She’s better than the others at what they do. She’s small, so she’s fast on her feet.  She’s got the nimblest fingers of any of them, even if they’ll never admit it. And she can disappear into Kings’ Landing’s long shadows better than any cat. 

Perhaps most importantly, Arya’s skills of observation and evasion, honed during her years dodging drunk men’s grabby hands at Toppance’s brothel, let her sneak up on lords and knights and highborn ladies completely undetected in a way none of the others can.

But none of this matters on the rare nights Arya’s take is lighter than the others. Because she’s a girl, on those nights she still gets treated badly by Mykal, the pimply sixteen-year-old who acts like their leader and who the others all call Ser.

Tonight Arya returns to their makeshift camp under the heating grates empty-handed.  Her unexpected encounter with Prince Gendry earlier rattled her so badly her hands are still shaking, even two hours later.  Finding another target after that would have been pointless. Or worse. 

In the time she’s been with this lot she’s never come back to camp with nothing. She doesn’t know how Mykal will react. Or what he might do to her. He hit her one time when all she had to show for an entire night’s work was a handful of coppers. He’s taken her share of food half a dozen other times just because he could.

Even on those nights, though, Arya’d managed to bring him more than _ nothing _ .

“What’s this, Arry?  What happened?” Mykal asks with a sneer when Arya turns out her empty pockets. Mykal knows her real name well enough. He just likes to say it wrong it to make her mad. Mykal looks her up and down with such contempt it takes all of Arya’s willpower not to grab Needle out of her back pocket and slice the smirk off his face. 

“I’m sorry, Ser,” Arya says, hoping an apology will help. She tries to make it sound as sincere as she can. 

(But Hot Pie – the stocky boy who cooks for the group and her only real friend here – shoots her a pointed look from behind Mykal. He shakes his head a little, letting her know the apology didn’t sound real. Her stomach clenches with worry.) 

Arya hates that she must stay in this idiot’s good graces to survive. But facts are facts. It’s the middle of the harshest winter anyone still alive can remember.  And she’s a girl, no matter how much she tries to hide it with short hair and breeches that don’t fit right. Being a girl on the streets of Kings Landing makes her a target for folks worse than Mykal, even if she’d give them a fight they’d never forget.

When things are bad with him, she reminds herself most of this lot are all right. Especially Hot Pie. She’s learned enough this past year to know that living in Flea Bottom in the middle of winter with no one to share food and other supplies with means certain death. Every night, before she falls asleep, she promises herself she’ll be gone the second the weather starts to warm. Until that time she knows she has no choice but to scrape and grovel.

For a brief moment, Arya considers telling Mykal what really happened tonight. Perhaps he’d finally show her respect if he knew she’d just attacked the heir to the Iron Throne and walked away to tell the tale. 

She quickly dismisses the idea. Prince Gendry has shown her kindness twice now. He gave her his cloak two years ago just because she was a little girl who looked cold.  And he could easily have had her thrown her into a dungeon tonight, but didn’t. She doesn’t want to repay his kindness by telling Mykal anything that might make him sound craven. Or, worse: an easy mark.

“I just had a bad night is all,” Arya says, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s cold out, isn’t it?  Not many people are about.” She looks Mykal right in the eye when she says it to make it sound convincing. 

It doesn’t work. 

“Liar,” Mykal spits. “Plenty of folk are out tonight, you little bitch. Pyp and Grenn each came back with half a hundred coins in just three hours.”

“Aye,” Grenn – a gangly boy of seventeen – agrees from Mykal’s right-hand side.  He shakes the satchel he carries to prove it, jangling its contents together loudly.  “I got coppers and stags in there, mind.”

Hot Pie sighs, exasperated.

“That’s good news, then, innit?” he asks Mykal pointedly.  He walks up to him and pokes him on the shoulder. Mykal’s eyes snap to his.  “It means we got plenty to go around even if Arya had a bad night.” 

Hot Pie puts his hands on his hips and looks around at the other boys as if daring them to challenge him.

“Hot Pie --” Mykal begins, warningly.

“Leave her alone,” Hot Pie insists, interrupting him.

Hot Pie isn’t much of a thief. In the time Arya’s been here he hasn’t gone out on a “raid,” as Mykal likes to call their nightly thieving expeditions, even once. But none of the boys, save Hot Pie, know one lick about cooking. Without him they’d all have starved to death years ago. 

Even Mykal admits it. As such, Hot Pie is one of the few people whose counsel Mykal will occasionally heed.“Fine,” Mykal says. He rolls his eyes, and punches Arya in the arm, hard – but not as hard as he could have done – before stalking off to the back of the camp.

Hot Pie isn’t always around to help her like this.  Arya knows his interventions – while helpful in the short term, sparing her as they do from Mykal’s punches and theft from the others – actually hurt her in the long run. She hears what the others all say behind her back, their snickering about what a soft little girl she is.    

If Arya planned to stay with this group any longer than she absolutely needed to this would concern her.  But she’s counting the days until she can slit Mykal’s throat and be on her way. In the meantime she’s just glad for any bit of friendship she can get.

* * *

 

None of them know about Prince Gendry’s cloak.

His gift to her was one of the few things she took with her when she left the brothel. It’s a bit worn, now, the once-bright gold background rather dingy after so much time spent hidden in her bedroll and knapsack.  But it’s just as warm tonight as it was when Prince Gendry first gave it to her. And for that she will be forever grateful.

Arya cannot wear it while she’s working. The extra bulk it provides would slow her down far too much. Its unmistakable black-on-gold sigil would also make hiding in the shadows impossible.  Arya would be arrested in seconds if she was seen in this cloak on the streets of Kings Landing, even if she happened to be minding her own business at the time. The gold cloaks would certainly assume she’d stolen it, and waste no time in tossing her into the dungeon she should have been shown to tonight.

It’s an easy thing to sleep underneath, though, this cloak. Mykal doesn’t allow fires after nightfall so during the overnight hours their camp is bathed in perpetual near-darkness. No one usually spares her as much as a backwards glance when she’s on her pallet anyway.  A thin dark sheet spread over the top of the cloak hides the black stag from any suspicious wayward eyes well enough, letting Arya sleep warmly and in peace.

As she chases sleep tonight, she gently traces the outline of the stag over and over again with her fingertips. Try as she might, she has been unable to stop thinking about the cloak’s prior owner since the moment earlier this evening when he bid her goodnight.

And yet before tonight it had been many moons since she’d thought of the prince at all.

After his memorable visit to Toppance’s brothel, Arya’d heard only the very occasional whisper about him from the other girls.  He never did come back a second time so there really wasn’t much for them to talk about. It was typically innocent gossip when the girls did mention him – clucking to one another other about how handsome he was, for example, the way they sometimes did after a visit from an especially kind or comely patron.  Some of the girls wondered if Prince Gendry had a lady waiting for him somewhere, and if he loved her. If, perhaps, an imminent betrothal was the reason he didn’t join his men on his nameday in fucking one of Toppance’s whores. 

In the weeks following the prince’s visit one of the girls – Malena, Arya thinks she was called; she wasn’t with Toppance long so Arya cannot be certain – sometimes described, in lewd detail, the sorts of things she would do to Prince Gendry if she were his lady.  Her bawdy suggestions made all the other girls laugh, but they only made Arya furious for reasons she did not understand. 

Either way, all of that was a very long time ago.

The truth is, despite the fact that Arya sleeps under his old cloak every night she hasn’t thought about Prince Gendry much in nearly two years.  She never forgot him, to be sure. On the contrary: she recognized him tonight the moment she heard his voice. But as kind as he’d been to her that one night, long ago, Arya has been far too preoccupied with her own survival to spare much thought for what the heir to the Iron Throne might be doing. 

After tonight’s run-in with him, however, she cannot get his face out of her head.  Or his strong, broad shoulders and man’s chest. His eyes were just as blue tonight as she remembers them being on the rare instances she thinks back on them. Arya’s seen enough filthy streams and gutters to last several lifetimes but has never visited a proper lake like the ones in Magda’s old picture book.  She wonders if somewhere in Westeros – perhaps up north somewhere, where she’s heard the land is cleaner and the people more trustworthy – there are clear blue waters that can rival the blue of the Prince eyes. 

 

 

* * *

 

Roughly a week after Arya’s second meeting with the prince, she’s roused from a restless sleep by a black leather boot gently nudging her right shoulder.

She opens one eye.  A well-dressed young man wearing the sigil of House Baratheon on his right breast stares down at her, frowning.

Arya’s jaw drops. She bolts upright, suddenly wide awake. Instinctively, she fumbles for Needle. Her fingers close around its familiar wooden shaft and she scrambles to her feet, trying to swallow her rising panic.

She’s been discovered. She doesn’t know how; she’s been more careful in recent days, making certain to leave behind no trace of her identity after robbing her victims. She no longer speaks to them with her voice – allowing Needle, instead, to do all the talking – out of fear that her girl’s voice will give her away.  Make it that much easier for her to be discovered and punished.

_ Has the prince changed his mind? _ She wonders, frantic.   _ Has he told the gold cloaks about my attacking him after all? _

Arya’s heart flops a little in her chest at the thought that the prince might have gone back on his promise to stay silent. But she does her best to ignore her disappointment and her fear.  To tamp them down. She stands up as straight as she can and narrows her eyes menacingly at this Baratheon sentry.

He’s not a frightening-looking man, whoever he is.  He’s stocky, but fairly short of stature. He looks nothing like the men the crown normally sends to collect criminals. 

To Arya’s surprise, at the sight of her knife his eyes grow wide and his face pales.  After what feels like a very long time indeed he pulls a knife of his own out of his satchel.  It’s a much longer knife than hers, its steel straight and gleaming and true. 

Arya bares her teeth at him, then, tightening her grip around Needle, daring him with her eyes to move first.  He may have a knife, and might be of House Baratheon. But Arya Waters will be nobody’s prisoner today.

At length, the young man clears his throat.  His eyes dart away from hers to the ground. “Um, excuse me, miss,” he says.  His voice is shaking. So is the arm that holds his blade. That confuses Arya enough that she relaxes her arm and lowers her knife a fraction of an inch.  “I’m not… I’m not here to hurt you, miss.”

Arya blinks at him.  “You’re not?”

He looks up at her.   He tries to smile, but it looks more like a grimace. 

“No,” the man confirms.  “I am Edric Storm. Squire to Lord Renly Baratheon.”

Arya’s eyes go wide.  “Lord Renly Baratheon?”  She doesn’t understand. From what she gathered from the girls at the brothel, Lord Renly is a silly fop of a man who spends more time fretting over his wardrobe than anything else.  What could Lord Renly possibly have to do with this?

“Yes,” Edric confirms. “In fact, I’ve been sent here by Lord Renly to find you. He’s in need of a girl to help in the kitchen and with other assorted household duties. He was told your skills in these areas are unparalleled and wishes you to join his household staff at your convenience.”

Arya is thunderstruck. Her eyebrows shoot up of their own accord. “Wait. What?” she stammers.  Now hers is the voice that’s shaking.

Edric tries to smile at her again. “I’ve been sent here by Lord Renly himself to find you,” Edric repeats, more slowly this time. “He’s in need of a girl to help in the kitchen and with –“

“No,” Arya says, interrupting, shaking her head. “I heard you just fine the first time. No need to say it again.” 

“Oh,” Edric says.  He averts his gaze again, this time choosing to look up at the sky instead of at the ground.

“What I meant was… how… what are you… how did you…”

She has so many questions for this strange young man she doesn’t know where to begin.  She trails off, biting her lip, willing Edric to give her the answers she’s looking for.

“Prince Gendry,” Edric says simply.  As though that explains everything.

“What?” Arya asks again.  Shaking her head before Edric can say Prince Gendry again, Arya clarifies.  “Did the prince say those things about me? How… how did he know I was here?”

“I don’t know how, miss,” Edric says sheepishly.  “Lord Renly told me how to find you, and to offer you the position I just described. I am to encourage you to accept it, and to show you to your quarters should you do so.” He smiles at her again. “Prince Gendry was the one to recommend you to him.  Beyond that, I know nothing more than you do, miss.”


	4. Chapter 4

After a thorough search of the Red Keep, Gendry eventually finds his sister sitting alone in the indoor gardens, her back to him.  She’s delicately perched on the edge of the karp pool along the far side of the verdant rooms, her eyes downcast and her hands neatly folded in her lap.

This arboretum was a bit of ostentatiousness their father had installed at great expense many years ago. Gendry can only guess at what its upkeep has cost the crown since.  The king has never admitted it, but it’s no secret that his building this space was the desperate act of a man who realized, too late, that his bride didn’t want him. As their mother tells it, the moment her brother Ned plucked her from where Rhaegar Targaryen had hidden her away in Dorne over twenty years ago, Robert immediately retained five dozen of the Realm’s most skilled builders to add these great glass rooms to the Red Keep.  He then stocked them with as many northron plants as could readily be obtained this far south of Winterfell.

“Your father wanted me to have an indoor place of natural beauty and light, right here in the city,” the Queen would tell Gendry, her voice guarded, whenever he asked about these rooms as a child. “To ease the pain I felt over leaving behind everyone and everything I loved. To remind me of home.”  

_ To convince you to stay _ , Gendry eventually realized, though his mother never said the words aloud.

Despite the lengths his father went to build these gardens, to Gendry’s knowledge his mother has never come here. Gendry does not know if his father realizes this. Or if he does, whether he even cares anymore.    

Either way, while these gardens may not have served the king’s original purpose they have long held a special place in Gendry’s heart. During childhood they were a pretty place for him to play games with his siblings, an oasis within the castle walls far enough away from their meddling Septa that they could be assured of going about their foolish business uninterrupted.    

The time for childish play is long gone, of course. But Gendry still likes it here. In the dead of winter, when for long stretches of time nothing can grow outside its walls, the gardens’ warm and fragrant air provides a kind of peace and solitude he cannot seem to find anywhere else.

As he enters the gardens Gendry walks towards Myrcella quietly so as not to startle her. His sister has always been a placid child, having inherited none of the Baratheon fury coursing through his own veins or the Stark mettle that has helped their mother survive marriage to their father. Myrcella may be Gendry’s spitting image – her long, curly hair may be raven black and her eyes as blue as his – but in all the ways that matter Gendry is as unlike his sister as day is unlike night.

Myrcella appeared to take the news of her betrothal to Trystane Martell rather well when their father announced it over breakfast this morning.  She did not scream, as some girls do. Neither did she cry, nor throw herself to the ground, nor rend her clothes. But the smile she gave theri father was forced, and she twisted her hands together in her lap the way she’s done when distressed ever since she was a child.

When she asked to be excused from breakfast early, having done nothing with her food but push it around her plate absently with her fork, Gendry knew he had to seek her out, after, to make certain she was all right. Myrcella, like many of the exotic blooms in these gardens, is very frequently in need of protection from the harsh realities of the outside world. Gendry has proudly filled that role her entire life. 

It pains him to know that very soon his sister will be another man’s concern. 

“Myrcella.”  

She looks up at the sound of his voice and fixes him with bright blue eyes rimmed with red.

His heart clenches painfully to see evidence of his sister’s recent tears. But she smiles up at him all the same.

“Gendry,” she says.  She smooths down her skirts, patting the spot next to her on the pool’s stone wall. She looks up at him, waiting for him to sit next to her as he did when they were children here, throwing stones into this same pool to frighten the fish.

He nods once and obliges, a few inches of space all that separates them. He takes her small hand in his and squeezes it gently.

She gives a shuddering sigh, making Gendry grit his teeth in frustration.

“If you don’t want this, Myrcella… if you don’t want  _ him _ …” he begins slowly. But he trails off, ashamed, because there’s truly nothing he can do to stop it.  His father offered Myrcella’s hand in marriage to House Martell. And Prince Doran Martell accepted on his son’s behalf. The plans are in motion, and wedding invitations are already being sent to the farthest corners of the Realm.   

There’s nothing more to be done for it. Myrcella is to be wed.

“Gendry,” Myrcella says again, very gently. She pats his free hand and he glances up at her.  Her eyes are wide but dry. She must have dashed away all evidence of her crying jag, as she learned to do many years ago whenever in the presence of their stoic mother.  “We both knew this day would come eventually.”

Gendry closes his eyes and squeezes his sister’s hand again.

“If he hurts you, Myrcella, I’ll… I’ll  _ kill  _ him.” This, at least, is one thing he  _ can _ do for her.

“I know,” she says. She smiles at him again. “I think… I think it will be all right.  Or at least, it could have been much worse.” She gives a short laugh. “Father could have offered me to one of Lord Tywin’s nephews. Or to his grandson.”

The very thought of Myrcella marrying Joffrey Tyrell – that monster; that blonde-haired abomination who everyone knows is as much Loras Tyrell’s actual trueborn son as Gendry is – causes his bile to rise and his vision to blur.

“True,” he manages to choke out with great difficulty.  He takes several very deep breaths, trying to tamp down his anger.  “It could have been worse.”

Her next words surprise Gendry.  “It’ll be fun, I think,” she says with a mischievous lilt to her voice.

“What?”

She giggles a little. “The wedding itself I mean,” she clarifies.  “And the weeks leading up to it. All those parties, here and in Dorne.”  She shrugs her shoulders a little. “Plus, Father says Uncle Ned and his family will be travelling down to Kings Landing to see us, and will travel with us to Dorne. We haven’t seen our cousins in years.”

It’s been more than a decade, more like. Gendry racks his brain, trying to conjure up an image of their mother’s older brother in his mind’s eye. But all he can remember of Ned Stark is a solemn-faced man whose seriousness frightened Tommen – hardly more than a babe at the time – so badly he started crying when they were introduced.

“Yes,” Gendry says, sighing.  He tries to give his sweet sister a smile.  “Seeing the Starks again will be good.”

They sit together for a long while after that, holding hands, the only noise in the gardens coming from the quiet beat of nearby butterfly wings and the occasional splash from fish diving deeper into the pool for a treat. As they ponder the rooms in silence Gendry wonders, sadly, if Sunspear’s famed pools will eventually replace these gardens in his sister’s memory.  If her new husband and his family will one day become dearer to her than anything in Kings’ Landing.

 

* * *

 

 

If Queen Lyanna is pleased that she will soon be seeing her brother, goodsister, and their children again, she shows no outward sign of it that night at dinner.

On the contrary.  As the King loudly shares with Gendry and Renly the details of his latest hunting expedition – all of which have likely been so heavily embellished Gendry suspects they bear little relation to actual events – Queen Lyanna sits silently at the opposite end of the table, her food untouched and her thin arms folded tightly across her chest.  Every time the King takes another swallow from his flagon of ale her steely eyes flit over to him, her gaze sharper than any dagger Gendry has ever seen.

Myrcella repeatedly tries to engage their mother in conversation.  King Robert is seated to Gendry’s immediate left, and he is speaking too loudly for Gendry to quite make out what his sister is saying.  But from the frustrated look on Myrcella’s face and the tight set of their mother’s jaw it is clear to him that his sister is having no success. As sometimes happens, their mother will not participate in dinnertime conversation tonight.

It’s not until much later -- after the dessert dishes have been cleared away and the Dornish red poured; roughly an hour after Myrcella and Tommen are excused from the dinner table and shuffled off to bed by Septa Halgane – that the queen finally speaks.

“Robert,” she says quietly. Her voice is barely above a whisper. The men immediately stop talking, like she’d just shouted a string of loud epithets rather than softly murmur her husband’s name.

With all eyes in the room on her, Lyanna pushes back from her chair, slowly and with deliberate purpose.  She stands, her back straight, her eyes fixed on her husband.  

To his credit, King Robert actually sets down his glass of wine.  He bites his lip, looking almost nervous as he waits for his wife to continue.  If Gendry didn’t know his father quite as well as he does he’d half wonder if the king were worried about what his queen was about to tell him.

“Yes, Lya,” the king says.  His words are slurred, as they often are after dinner, but sound no less earnest for that.  “What is it, dove?”

The queen flinches at the endearment as though the king had slapped her. But she recovers quickly, schooling her features.

“I will never forgive you for this,” she says simply, and quietly, her voice icy with barely-controlled rage.

The king raises an eyebrow at her from across the table.  He rolls his eyes a little, as he often does during what he dismissively calls his wife’s  _ tantrums _ .  He picks up his glass of Dornish red and takes a loud indelicate sip.

“What did I do this time, wife?” Robert asks, setting down the glass. He gives no false endearments this time. He sounds irritated. Bored.

The queen folds her arms across her chest.

“You don’t know what it’s like to bid farewell to a child, Robert. To never see your own flesh and blood again,” she spits, her words clipped and precise. Her voice is louder now. Shakier. She narrows her eyes and jabs an accusatory finger at him.  “You arranged all this with Dorne behind my back. Without consulting me, your queen. Without even asking  _ Myrcella _ , as though your daughter is nothing but a bargaining chip, like she’s nothing to you but chattel.  And as though your own wife’s beating heart is nothing to you at all.”

Robert rubs his face with his hands and shakes his head back and forth in exasperation.

“Lya,” he says on an exaggerated sigh.  “Look –“

The queen cuts him off.  “I will  _ never _ forgive you for this,” she says again, her voice filled with anger and tears and something else Gendry cannot quite recognize.  “Never.” Lyanna sweeps out of the dining room without another word, her elaborate forest green skirts trailing behind her.

The servants in the Red Keep have long discussed the queen’s stony silences and infamous shouting matches with the king among themselves in hushed tones.  The Spider has occasionally mentioned whispers from smallfolk about her, indicating that some think her an angry, unstable queen. Some lords in the lesser houses are bolder, telling Lord Varys outright that they think her an inappropriate woman.  A woman unfit to rule.

Whether or not his mother’s reputation is accurate or deserved, it’s true that her vitriolic dinnertime speeches were a regular fixture of Gendry’s childhood.  Though he is loath to admit it to himself, and would never admit it to anyone else, Gendry has learned to mostly ignore his mother’s tirades out of self-defense.

This time, however, Gendry feels his mother has the right of things.  As his father continues his ridiculous story of the giant she-boar that got away, as though nothing particularly notable had just happened, Gendry’s glass of Dornish red tastes like ash in his mouth.   He sets the glass down and feigns interest in his father’s tall tales.

 

* * *

 

Gendry likes to escort his uncle halfway home on nights he dines with them.  

As staunchly loyal as Renly is to House Baratheon and to the crown, he is also an irreverent and very funny man, wasting no opportunity to mock the king whenever his older brother is out of earshot.  Especially when he is in his cups, as he is tonight. Gendry may be the king’s heir, but he always enjoys Renly’s japes at his father’s expense. He lacks his uncle’s quick wit and sharp tongue but does his best to get in a few jabs of his own whenever the two of them are alone together.

And sometimes, in recent weeks, his uncle will also let slip a few details about his new kitchen girl.  

It’s happened twice. The first time, Renly told Gendry in passing that the “thief girl,” as Renly called her, accepted his offer to join his household.  The second time was just to say the girl seemed a quick learner and was getting on well with the other servants.

If Gendry had more courage he’d ask about Arya every time he saw his uncle. He’d ask if she seemed happy to be living in a fine house, with plenty of food and no shortage of firewood in the hearth.  He’d ask Renly if she seemed lonely in her new home or if she had found friends.  

If he were  _ very _ brave he might even ask if Arya ever mentioned him.  And if so, what she’d said.

But Gendry doesn’t dare raise the issue of Arya Waters on his own.  

To his credit, Renly has been mercifully uncurious about  _ why _ , exactly, his nephew wanted so desperately to pluck this particular bastard girl off the streets and move her into his household as quickly as possible.  Asking too many questions, now, about how Arya is settling in to her new home would likely earn him a battery of uncomfortable – if well-deserved – questions in return.

Questions to which Gendry still has no good answers.  Yes, the girl was in dire straits when he last saw her.  But so aren’t legions of other Flea Bottom wretches. Why exactly  _ had _ it been so urgent that he intervene on this particular girl’s behalf?  Why was it so important to him that she be saved from the streets of Kings Landing?

Gendry lies awake for hours some nights trying to answer these questions.  But he is no closer to understanding it now than he was the night he begged his uncle to send Edric down to Flea Bottom to find her.

Whatever his reasons had been, tonight will likely shed no light on the situation.  Renly appears to be in the mood to discuss matters facing the Realm when they leave the dining room, much to Gendry’s disappointment.

“It’ll be good, this match with Dorne,” Renly opines quietly, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as he and Gendry walk together to the front doors of the Red Keep.  He gives Gendry a pointed look out of the corner of his eye, implying that tonight there will be no japes made about King Robert, nor information provided about fearless young bastard girls he shouldn’t be thinking about anyway.

“Yes, uncle,” Gendry agrees, hoping Renly cannot hear the lie in his tone.  “It will be a good match, it’s true. Myrcella is a sweet, dutiful girl. And this Trystane Martell is…” Gendry’s tongue suddenly sticks itself to the roof of his mouth, making it impossible for him to finish his sentence.

“Trystane Martell is a sweet, dutiful boy,” Renly finishes for him.  “A boy who will be good to your sister and loyal to the crown. According to everyone.”

“Yes,” Gendry agrees.  He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly.  “According to everyone.”

They walk together in silence for another very long moment after that, the only sound in the hall coming from their echoing footsteps against the worn stone path.  When at length they arrive at the front gates, Renly turns to his nephew.

“Here,” he tells Gendry without preamble.  He takes a small folded slip of parchment out of the pocket of his breeches and places it into Gendry’s right hand.  He closes Gendry’s hand around it, then gives his hand a gentle pat.  

“What is this?” Gendry asks, peering at his uncle, then his hand.

“It’s nothing, your grace.  A short note. Read it later,” Renly instructs, his voice strange, waving his hands dismissively.  “And good night. I’ll see you at my house for dinner in two night’s time, yes?”

“Yes, of course, uncle,” he agrees quickly, remembering, only now, the promise he’d made a fortnight ago to dine with his uncle later this week.  “Good night.”

His hand that holds the parchment grows warm as Gendry waves goodnight to his uncle.

* * *

 

When at last Gendry is alone – after his parents have both gone to bed, and his uncle has left for home – Gendry climbs into his four-poster bed and opens the note Renly gave him with exceeding caution.  As though the parchment might burn him if he rushed the act.

The message consists of only five handwritten words, the penmanship so poor they’re barely legible.  But Gendry reads the note over and over again to himself anyway, a slow smile spreading across his face as he does. 

_            Thank you your grace. _

_            Arya _

Gendry lays Arya’s note on his bedside table as he chases sleep that night.  He wonders, idly, if he’ll ever see this girl again. If perhaps he’ll see her in two nights.  And if he  _ does _ see her at Renly’s house, what in seven hells he’ll say to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gendrya reunion coming next chapter ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)  
> I'm also on tumblr at [jeeno2](https://jeeno2.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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